Shoppers support local businesses during Small Business Saturday
Berl Tiskus
Shopper Dolores Swalling visits All In Stitches quilt and knitting store during Small Business Saturday in Polson.
Berl Tiskus
Mariah Haines, whose birthday is this week, looks at a tiny birdhouse ornament complete with a teeny tiny bird.
Karen Peterson photo
Wendi Arnold explains the different flavors present in her cheeses to a group of shoppers on Small
Berl Tiskus
A hand-crafted creche is one of several works of art at Sandpiper Art Gallery in Polson.
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POLSON — With Christmas day just 25 days away, many small businesses in Polson and Ronan were ready for the holidays with lights, wreaths, Christmas trees and ornaments just in time for Small Business Saturday Nov. 30.
American Express started the day four years ago to encourage shoppers to support local small businesses after Black Friday and before Cyber Monday.
Business was good at the Sandpiper Art Gallery, with many people perusing ornaments and visiting, according to a shopkeeper.
Mariah Haines, almost 7 years old, was looking at handmade wooden ornaments on the Christmas tree while shopping downtown stores with her grandmother, Carolyn Pardini.
All in Stitches was humming, too. Some customers admitted to being in the middle of a project or just needing to buy some fabric, but Susan Hartman, who works at the store, said they’d had lots of customers come in who were not seamstresses or quilters.
As an incentive, the shop was offering 10 percent off on many items.
“We’re just looking for something to buy,” the shoppers told Hartman and Diane Byers, who also works at the store.
“We’ve really have been busy,” Byers said. “People are deliberately shopping downtown. Small businesses enable local people to have control of their community, to hire local people and all those salaries go back into the community. I’m not saying bigger business isn’t important. People just need to be aware of how important small business is to the community.”
Tali Barron, who owns The First Resort, said she made a decision to offer 50 percent off everything in the store on Small Business Saturday, an unadvertised bonus. People who came in were sticking around, either buying Christmas gifts or purchasing items for themselves. At 7 a.m. on Black Friday, she had customers lined up, too, so it was a successful weekend for the downtown Polson clothing retailer.
There’d been a steady stream of shoppers at Mission Mountain Natural Foods, according to clerks Patty Stone and Megan Pugh.
“It’s been crazy,” Stone said, adding that their gift store next door was also busy.
Lee Wallace of Ronan braved the drizzling rain but not the massive crowds of Black Friday as she shopped around the valley on Small Business Saturday.
“It’s great having fun unique businesses here on a micro scale,” she said walking through Flathead Lake Cheese for a tour of the facilities nestled in a renovated home on First Avenue in Polson next to the lake.
Joe Arnold helped his wife Wendi Arnold, owner, build the solar powered cheese factory that opened almost a year ago.
“Our philosophy is to reuse and repurpose,” Joe said during the tour featuring a room of stainless steel cheese making equipment brought in from all over Montana.
Wendi handed out samples and sold cheese with names like Doorstop Gouda, Joe’s Hawaiian Shirt Feta and Ray’s Pop Curds. She explained the interdependent relationship she created with the community by getting milk for the cheese from local dairies, making the cheese locally and supplying local businesses with cheese.
“We do our part to support local,” Wendi said. “I like the idea of us all supporting each other.”
Keeping the money circulating in the area is important to the couple.
“We keep the money here,” Joe said “The best thing I can do for the community is get people from Minnesota or someplace so the money comes here and stays here. It creates a healthy community where everybody has a chance to make a good living. It creates more jobs and more wellbeing.”
Ronna Walchuk – owner of the Ronan Flower Mill for 20 years – also saw more people out on Saturday.
“We’ve had a different array of people coming out shopping,” she said. “It’s wonderful to see the support from people.”
Running a small business “isn’t always easy in a small town,” Walchuk said, but there are benefits. “Being smaller and secluded, we are protective of one another. If someone is in need, we have a fundraiser. We pull together. We look out for one another including our businesses.”
